{"id":5,"date":"2008-04-06T23:16:48","date_gmt":"2008-04-06T16:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/msmichetti.edublogs.org\/2008\/04\/06\/thoughts-about-school\/"},"modified":"2008-04-06T23:16:48","modified_gmt":"2008-04-06T16:16:48","slug":"thoughts-about-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/06\/thoughts-about-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts about &quot;school&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having just returned from two back-to-back trips, I am now in contemplative mode before the craziness of the school week sets in. <strong>Trip 1:<\/strong> a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/earcos.org\/etc2008\/\">conference<\/a> for international educators in the East-Asia region. <strong>Trip 2: <\/strong>a vacation on the wonderful island of Bali, a paradise for so many reasons. (I will stop there lest I begin to wax lyrical about this inspiring land, as I realize plenty of others have already done this, so I really don&#8217;t need to. Plus, it could honestly take up <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baliblog.com\/\">another blog site<\/a> altogether. Or a book, even.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Trip 1<\/strong> gave me plenty of insight into the world of education, particularly international education, and was a good &#8220;refresher&#8221; of both the positives and the negatives about being in this world.<\/p>\n<p>Positives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are some super cool things going on out there, for lack of better wording (and, well, it&#8217;s late here in Hanoi, and I&#8217;m bone-tired). Cool things like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thethinkingstick.com\/\">Jeff Utecht<\/a>&#8216;s talk about the movement of connectivism and such. I hope lots of teachers &#8212; and administrators to boot &#8212; were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thethinkingstick.com\/?p=650\">paying attention to him<\/a>, particularly to his bits focused on the philosophy and theory rather than the nuts-and-bolts of RSS. While both are useful and necessary, the former is more revolutionary to the world of education than the latter, I believe.<\/li>\n<li>There are some super cool people out there, and lots of them happen to be educators. I know lots of other super cool people too, and have found myself wondering why they aren&#8217;t educators, too. Hmmm&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m happy to see a dynamic duo coming together, even if in name rather than philosophy. I&#8217;m talking here about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibo.org\">IBO<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earcos.org\">EARCOS<\/a>. Too often organizations like EARCOS seem (to me, at least) so overly focused on American schools overseas, which most IB schools are not. Props to both organizations for coming together.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Negatives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sadly, there are still too many educators who are teaching in traditional classrooms. I went to at least 5-too-many sessions led by professionals (many who have been in education longer than I have been alive, and I&#8217;m 33) who think about school as a place where students sit within 4 walls and at desks. <em>When can we move away from this?<\/em><\/li>\n<li>There are also a number of educators, from all backgrounds, ages, and disciplines, who think that all this &#8220;IT stuff&#8221; is about technology. There were a few tense moments for me when I wanted to jump up and shout, amongst 45 or so of my peers, <strong><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s not about the technology!&#8221;<\/em> <\/strong>but I refrained, mostly because I am just tired of explaining it to those who don&#8217;t get it.<\/li>\n<li>The staff at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shangri-la.com\/en\/property\/kualalumpur\/shangrila\">Shangri-La<\/a> had a difficult time remembering that I was actually staying in room 303. I was beginning to think that no one ever stayed in that room, or that it did not exist, or perhaps only existed in some strange 5-star hotel bad-karma vortex. Long story, but it was a pain in the neck.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Trip 2 <\/strong>&#8212; oh, there is always plenty of insight to be had when one is on vacation, isn&#8217;t there? \ud83d\ude42 I won&#8217;t share it all with you, as most of it is journalled anyway, but I will share one particularly intriguing and relevant find:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenschool.org\">The Green School<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I am <strong>really<\/strong> intrigued by this school. I have to admit, at first I was skeptical, thinking it was just another international school start-up by some over-zealous businessman. My partner showed me the advertisement in an edition of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baliadvertiser.biz\/\">Bali Advertiser<\/a>, and I kind of shrugged it off at first. But he persisted, and upon our return to Hanoi, urged me to check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenschool.org\">their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>WOW.<\/p>\n<p>I am rather floored, to be honest. And I was so very wrong! What a wonderful, innovative, forward-thinking and un-school-ish idea they have for their sustainable, eco-conscious, whole-child oriented school. Their school is definitely on my watch list, and I daresay that I would love to stop by and visit the next time I am in Bali. They have a unique <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenschool.org\/our-vision\">vision<\/a> and philosophy, one that I dearly hope more schools latch on to, and not just by lip service. I imagine this school would be a wonderful place to work, learn, and experience all around. Props to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Hardy_(jewelry)\">Hardys of Bali<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>And on that note, I will end this post as I continue to contemplate the future, education, and my place within all of it. Hopefully it won&#8217;t keep me awake at night, as I have a busy first-day-back-post-Spring Break tomorrow&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~s\/MsMichettisVirtualClassroom?i=POST-URL-HERE\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3 class='related_post_title'>Like this? You might also enjoy these:<\/h3><ul class='related_post'><li><a href=\"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/15\/resuscitated-assessment-for-what-its-worth\/\" title=\"Resuscitated: Assessment &#8212; For What it&#039;s Worth\">Resuscitated: Assessment &#8212; For What it&#039;s Worth<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/23\/on-testing-and-assessment-or-why-i-love-myp\/\" title=\"On Testing and Assessment (or, Why I Love MYP)\">On Testing and Assessment (or, Why I Love MYP)<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/19\/is-it-easy-being-green-my-visit-to-green-school\/\" title=\"Is It Easy Being Green? My Visit To Green School\">Is It Easy Being Green? My Visit To Green School<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/17\/absence-affirmations-and-aspirations\/\" title=\"Absence = Affirmations + Aspirations\">Absence = Affirmations + Aspirations<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/30\/assessment-for-what-its-worth\/\" title=\"Assessment &#8212; For What it&#039;s Worth\">Assessment &#8212; For What it&#039;s Worth<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having just returned from two back-to-back trips, I am now in contemplative mode before the craziness of the school week sets in. Trip 1: a conference for international educators in the East-Asia region. Trip 2: a vacation on the wonderful island of Bali, a paradise for so many reasons. (I will stop there lest I <a href='https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/06\/thoughts-about-school\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,58,61,79,85,104,114,137,153],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-philosophy","tag-bali","tag-earcos","tag-education","tag-green-school","tag-ibo","tag-musings","tag-philosophy","tag-shangri-la","tag-technology","category-6-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-line-bottom","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3serH-5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adriennemichetti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}